Gulf Watchers Wednesday - Oil Sightings Confirmed as Macondo - BP Catastrophe AUV #559

Recent sheens seen in the Gulf have been further studied and confirmed as coming from the Macondo well. Fish in the Gulf unhealthy but not necessarily unsafe to eat. DOJ focusing on pressure tests that BP didn't report. Studies being done to look at oil in the food chain. Environmentalists blast BP's new plans. Raceland doc reports on post spill health and more money for local Gulf charities.

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Both BP and NOAA have claimed that the oil samples, recently collected from the oil  sheen  over the area of the Macondo, couldn't definatively be identified and could be from anywhere in that part of the Gulf. Ed Overton, chemist from LSU, did more advanced studies and claims that there is no mistake that it is Macondo oil.  The Press-Register broke the story of oil floating over the Macondo site after oil had been seen on several fly overs by Bonnie Schumacher from Wings of Love. Samples taken by the paper were sent to LSU and subsequently samples were taken by NOAA.  LSU announced that their samples were from the MC252 well. But the samples collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not contain enough oil to determine if the BP well was the source, according to officials. ... In a Sept. 15 email, NOAA’s Sherman suggested that samples collected by the newspaper might not actually be from BP’s well, which is designated MC252 and called the Macondo well. “Yes, the oil that you took was confirmed as MC252, but it does not necessarily mean it is in any way related to the (Deepwater Horizon) spill. Most of the oil throughout the region can be preliminarily identified as MC252 type,” the email read. Sherman went on to say that NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinator had consulted with the LSU chemists and determined that the oil might not be from the BP well. Ed Overton, who analysed the oil for LSU, and who had worked with NOAA during the spill, then spoke with BP scientists and federal officials who suggested more a more refined type of analysis. “They were suggesting I had jumped the gun when I said it matched (BP’s well),” Overton said last week. “They are incorrect. I have double-checked, and I am even more convinced after using the suggestions that BP made that this was the Macondo oil. I think it is 99.9 percent confirmed that it came from that reservoir. “It is a dead-ringer match . I was amazed that the ratios matched as good as they did.” Overton said BP also provided him with samples from nearby oil sources, none of which matched the oil collected by the newspaper. NOAA and the Coast Guard claim that, upon examining the wellsite with ROV's,  there is no leak at the wellsite. Video is available at  Restore The Gulf.  Some of us don't recognise the well as being the way it looked when originally capped. You can see Peraspera's video taken the day of the capping here.   Overton and other petroleum engineers suggest that BP and NOAA haven't done enough to identify the source of oil. “There are instruments that can be deployed to detect the hydrocarbons,” said Robert Bea, a petroleum engineer at the University of California and a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, which includes more than 50 top scientists. “The oil companies use subsea-towed ’sniffers’ for this purpose.” BP officials declined to answer whether the company would use a hydrocarbon sniffer, which can trace oil in the water column from the surface to the seafloor. “This is crazy. I don’t understand why they are not doing that,” said Overton, who with his colleagues recently earned NOAA’s “Superior Accomplishment Award” for oil analysis done for the government during the oil spill. “Whether it is coming from the well itself, or coming from the riser pipe, you can’t say unless you go down there and look,” Overton said. “There’s oil coming up. Where is it coming from? Send an ROV with a sniffer down and see if you see anything. As much money as has been spent, go spend a little more instead of denying that there is a problem.” Breaking News Transocean,as the rig owner, is now being ordered by the feds to survey the ocean floor with ROV's to find the source of the oil.

Researchers find that fish exposed to oil undergo cellular changes. Studies were done on a minnow like fish, killifish, that lives in the Gulf marshes. Two months after the oil was "gone" the fish showed abnormalities, as did the fish embryos that had only trace amounts of chemical in them. These changes were linked to reproduction and overall health. “Their biology is telling us that they’ve been a), exposed to these chemicals and b), affected by them in negative ways,” said Andrew Whitehead, an associate professor of biology at LSU and the paper’s lead author. “Very low-level exposures can cause these toxic effects.” The group sampled killifish at six field sites spanning from Barataria Bay in Louisiana to Mobile Bay off Alabama. Researchers started sampling before oil made landfall in May 2010 and continued sampling as late as September 2010. They used satellite imagery as well as photographs to pinpoint where oil had hit marshes. Whitehead said the findings were cause for concern because the fish, also known as bull minnow or cacahoe, were showing the same initial signs of toxicity that appeared in herring and harlequin ducks after Alaska’s 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. These populations crashed, and some have yet to recover. The research was funded by BP through the National Academy of Sciences. According to Whitehead, the federal inspections that say the fish is safe to eat and this study are two seperate issues. “You can have a fish that’s safe to eat but is still not healthy,” he said, adding that as sediment containing hydrocarbons is dredged up by storms, it could expose species over time. “The sediments are going to act as this long-term reservoir of oil, of potential exposure.”

Failure to notify the government regulatory agency about unexpected pressure test results could be the focus of the prosecution in spill inquiry. According to a number of sources familiar with the investigation, Department of Justice officials are focusing on two data points that are important in safe drilling: pore pressure, which is how much pressure the oil and gas in an underground formation exerts; and fracture pressure, which is the pressure at which the formation would begin to break and absorb drilling muds. ... In particular, prosecutors are looking at an April 13, 2010, email from a BP geological operations manager to other BP engineers explaining why the company decided to stop drilling the Macondo well when it did and begin final preparation to complete the well. The email describes pressure readings the crew found as it drilled the final 100 feet of the well, and indicates that the readings were different than expected. While drilling operations rarely go exactly as planned, the differences seen in this case appear to have been significant.   When operators encounter such deviations, they are required to reflect them in drilling documentation and get approval from regulators. If differences were great enough, the operator would need to change its well design. It's not clear if BP fully reported the results of the tests or took appropriate actions, but sources say prosecutors are arguing the company failed to do so and violated federal regulations. Since federal regulations don't define a safe pressure margin, it is determined on a case by case basis, it may come down to experts testifying against experts. The drilling margin matter is one of many in the criminal investigation into the 2010 Macondo disaster. Sources previously have told the Chronicle that investigators are looking into involuntary manslaughter charges because of individuals' decisions that increased the risk of operations. Officials also are investigating whether BP withheld accurate estimates of the size of the spill in the weeks after the accident in order to slow the slide in the company's stock price. David Uhlmann, a former head of the Justice Department's environmental-crimes section who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, says the focus on drilling pressure suggests that the government is being thorough and diligent in its approach. "To suggest that it means there are no smoking guns may be reading too much into what they are doing," Uhlmann said. "There remains a simple and very straightforward case focused on negligent violations of the Clean Water Act and involuntary manslaughter. The open question is whether there is more."

More research being done by LSU will look at the oil spills effect on the food chain and ecosystem by studying insects, birds and oysters.Three different studies will be done by the university's AGCenter. The first will look at bugs and spiders taken from oiled and unoiled parts of the Gulf. "Insects are good indicators - signals - of stress," said entomologist Linda Hooper-Bui. "They can be food for frogs, fish and birds. We're asking the insects to tell us about the oil's impact on the food web." ... "We're looking at the ecosystem-level effects of stressors in salt marshes that fringe the Gulf of Mexico and on beaches and dunes from Texas to the Florida Panhandle," she said. The researchers have established a line of experimental plots, called transects, in marshes, beaches and dunes - some of which have been covered in oil and others that were spared. ... "We'll collect insects and spiders, clip grass to see what's living inside their hollow stems, and see how the ecosystem responds to stressors - oil, dispersants, human activity, fresh water diversions and other things," she said. Another level of the research will look at seaside sparrows. The birds would only have come into contact with oil incidentally, or by eating oiled bugs or creatures. Researchers will look at DNA markers and carbon -14 levels. "Low levels of C-14 will indicate if the birds have replaced the C-14 in their systems with older carbon that would have come from oil," [Sabrina]Taylor said. [Philip] Taylor and Stouffer also will be looking at a gene that is active in the presence of pollutants called polycyclic hydrocarbons or PAHs, some of which are carcinogenic. Gene activity indicates oil is present. Oysters are frequently studied as measures of contamination, because they are stationary and filter feeders. Jerome La Peyre in the AgCenter's Department of Veterinary Science and Ken Brown in the LSU Department of Biological Sciences are looking at oil's effects on the health and production of oysters, continuing research funded by Louisiana Sea Grant. ... La Peyre is collecting oysters from parts of the coast that were cleaned of oil and areas that it never reached. He also has put genetically identical hatchery-raised oysters, along the coast to evaluate their responses to various environmental stressors. "This is an extremely complicated, long-term project that will be a definitive study of ecosystem change," Hooper-Bui said.

Environmental groups and some lawmakers criticise BP's new drilling plan BP wants all to be forgotten and get a "start over" when it comes to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The plans for a new well presented last week would be 1,000 feet deeper than Macondo. Outrageous considering that they haven't cleaned up their mess and the long term consequences of their bad behavior still aren't known. “We don’t think there is any way they can drill safely,” Jackie Savitz, a senior campaign director at Washington-based Oceana, said in an interview. “If we see an opportunity to stop drilling through litigation, we will seriously consider it.” ... "By filing its first drilling plan a mere week after being cited for multiple violations of federal regulations by the government’s investigation team for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP now stands for Being Premature,” said Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who sits on the House Natural Resources Committee. Markey said in statement on Sept. 23 that he will push for executives to testify on safety and other lessons learned from Macondo before Congress. ... “BP has not yet cleaned up its mess from the April 20, 2010 BP Macondo blowout, and until it does it should not be allowed to drill more wells in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Davit Pettit, a senior attorney at the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council. “There is still oil from the BP Macondo well washing up on Gulf beaches. BP needs to take responsibility for this and get that oil out of the Gulf ecosystem.” ... “On the basis of activity since Macondo, there’s no evidence that BP will do a better job than in the past,” said Charlie Kronick, a climate adviser at Greenpeace U.K., in a telephone interview. “There’s absolutely no way they should be drilling again.” {h/t Yas}

Raceland, LA doctor treats those with spill related illnesses. This man is a real hero in my eyes as I am sure that he is not being compensated for much of the care. He has continued to draw public attention to these issues and I hope he will be testifying in the many lawsuits against BP. "I'm 32 years old, and something's wrong with me," said Jamie Simon. "I don't feel good, I'm always sick." For seven months, Simon was the head cooking supervisor for BP clean-up workers on a barge in the Gulf. "We would wash their clothes, mop their floors, cook their meals, and make their beds," said Simon, noting she would touch workers used clothes with her bare hands. Since then, the Golden Meadow native has had severe health problems -- including memory loss, seizures, reproductive issues, and rashes on her hands. "If Jamie weren't such a tough cookie, she'd be dead right now," said Dr. Michael Robichaux, an ear nose and throat doctor in Raceland.  He believes the BP oil spill- and chemicals used in the clean up- have been making people sick. He spoke out Saturday afternoon at an Uptown forum on the spill's effects. Since the spill, Robichaux said he has seen dozens of patients with symptoms like Simon's. "I believe that a large part of it is toxins of some sort affecting the central nervous system," said Robichaux. The former state senator has been taking blood samples from patients to test for chemicals. But because there' s no control group, he can't be sure the BP disaster is behind their symptoms. But Robichaux believes there's no other explanation. "I am in the epicenter, I am in the center of where we're seeing all this, so i have an opportunity to see things nobody has seen before, and may ever see again," said Robichaux. ...  Dr. Michael Robichaux said he's starting up a treatment facility in Raceland for possible victims of the BP spill. He believes many victims can "sweat out" the toxins. BP has not responded to Eyewitness News' request for comment.

$2.3 million will be distributed to community organisations on the Gulf Coast. The money comes from a $4 million grant from an anonymous donor to the Rockefeller Philantropies Advisors. The money is meant to enhance the resiliency of Gulf communities and meet the needs of individuals, families and children affected by the BP catastrophe. Grants are going to nonprofits that provide direct services to residents. GCCF received more than 85 grant proposals, with a total of $11 million in requests. “That represents a big unmet need that exists in our community from the devastating impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that occurred over a year ago,” GCCF board chairman Bill McDonough said. “We are grateful for the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Fund for Gulf Communities for the opportunity to assist our area non-profit organizations and citizens in this way.” With the money, nonprofits will provide an array of services, including medical and mental-health care, training for displaced workers, financial planning, food, multilingual computer and literacy training, mental-health services in the schools, legal assistance, medication, and publicity and volunteer recruitment. The following agencies will be receiving the money. Bethel Free Health Clinic: $201,534 Coastal Family Health Center: $240,500 Digital Opportunity Trust–USA: $100,000 Habitat Gulf Coast: $118,000 Hancock County Food Pantry: $75,000 Hope Community Development Agency: $160,745 International Relief and Development/Youth Build: $250,000 Memorial Hospital at Gulfport Foundation: $228,617 Mercy Housing and Human Development: $200,000 Mississippi Center for Justice: $250,000 St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy: $218,920 United Way of South Mississippi: $250,000

Yasuragi has suggested that you check out this diary about princesspat. If your are able you may contribute to her quilt there.

PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!

Previous Gulf Watcher diaries:

9-25-11 01:55 PM	Gulf Watchers Sunday - BP To Drill, Political Theater To Continue - BP Catastrophe AUV #558	Lorinda Pike
9-23-11 06:28 PM	GW Friday Block Party: Sports Edition	Phil S 33

The last Mothership has links to reference material.

Previous motherships and ROV's from this extensive live blog effort may be found here.

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